Canadian students asked to buy $180 art book with no pictures of art

Canadian art students are in revolt after being asked to buy a very expensive art book that, due to a threatened copyright dispute, has blank spaces where the pictures should be.

As far as stories of copyright entanglements go, there are some bad one out there, but asking students to pay $180 for Global Visual and Cultural Material: Prehistory to 1800, which contains no images of said material, is a tall order.

Graeme McNaughton in Canada’s National Posttalked with Kathy Shailer, dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, who said the book was meant to save students money.

“It would have been over $300 [to require students to buy the two existing texts, which both include artwork], which would have been beyond the pale of what to ask for students,” says Ms. Shailer, adding that not all parts of the individual textbooks are used.”

As Mike Masnick at TechDirtnotes, the situation is particularly strange given Canadian courts have indicated that such images would be given fair dealing protections for the purpose of education.

“Students in the class have put up a petition to protest what they quite correctly call a “sham.” It’s even more bizarre given that recent court rulings in Canada would suggest that the images in question would be given pretty broad “fair dealing” protections for the purpose of education. But, just the threat of copyright claims, apparently, are creating an absolutely ridiculous situation.”

“If I am going to have to pay $180 for an art history book that is of no resale value to next year’s students, it had damn well better be an excellent visual reference with hard cover and full colour plates, to keep around for years, festooning my coffee table and that of my heirs.”

One Comment

Masnick at Techdirt is completely wrong in his suggestion about fair dealing in this instance. The court ruling to which he refers made no decision about uses such as this. He likely knows that, but as usual, wants to blame all world problems on copyright.

The story in the National Post contains the germ of what is really going on here. The “book” in question is actually a coursepack compilation created by/for the university itself from three actual textbooks. In order to use so much material from other sources, a copyright licence or permission must be obtained. Clearly, the university failed to obtain permission or refused to pay a licence.

This is NOT a story about greedy textbook publishers, as Masnick and other anti-copyright activists would probably like us to believe. It is a story about school administrations trying to cut corners and not pay creators fairly for the use of their work.

Yes, it is absurd that the school would make such a dog’s breakfast of a coursepack mandatory, especially when professionally published textbooks are available for a lower price. Don’t blame copyright holders for the dumb decisions of others.